A Storm and a Disappearnce

The trip was not all monotony.  Three days out of San Francisco we ran into a gale that we later found was one of the worst in that area in three or four years.  That was when I learned to like coffee.

The third evening out the sky was leaden at sunset and the ocean was dark grey with a froth of whitecaps and spume fro a wind that came off the port bow.  The horizon was indistinct.  The dark grey of the clouds simply merged somewhere into the darker grey of the angry ocean.  Neither was there a sunset glow to fit the old saying, “Red sky at night—sailor’s delight—red sky at moring—sailor take warning”.  There must have been a blazing red sky that mornig as the wind was rising rapidly to gale force.  Even with the stabilizing influence of the tow, the ship was rolling and pitching so that we had to sleep with a grip on the bunk rails and our toes hooked on the bottom rail.

I had barely gotten to sleep when the watch petty officer woke me—I had the twelve to two watch on the port wing of the bridge.  The watch PO warned me to wear my peacoat and watch cap as it was cold and wet up there.

When I emerged from the foc’sul hatch I found the watch petty officer was right.  It was raining and the wind buffeted me as I struggled through the blackness along the catwalk above the main deck over which green water was breaking.  Rain drops and salt spray stung my face in the fifty=knot wind.  The whitecaps towered well above my head from the catwalk level as the heavily laden Tippecanoe slugged her way through the mountainous waves.

I reached the bridge at twenty-three-fifty, ten minutes before eight bells when the watch would change so I ducked into the dimly-lit bridge before relieving my man on the exposed port bridge wing.  I looked at the chart spread on the navigator’s table at the rear of the bridge and was impressed by the ferocity of the wind—the line of our course made good was actually going backward.  With the drag of the towed barge, we lost ground for six or eight hours.

I reported to the watch officer who was a grey-haired and spectacled elderly “re-tread” reserve lieutenant from the World War.  He was a mild-mannered little man and was the ship’s executive officer.  (I do not recall that I ever saw the captain of the Tippecanoe.)

The two hours of my watch were interminable and miserable.  In the wind-whipped blackness I was pelted by rain and spray from the waves that broke level with the bridge—and the bridge was forty feet above the waterline.  Other than the red running light, I could see nothing but blackness abeam and could barely make out the bow of the ship.  Every thirty minutes, as required by regulations and custom, I reported to the watch officer, “Nothing in sight—port running light burning bright, sir.”

Sometime during the first hour of my watch I was a dim figure moving along the catwalk.  The individual was wearing the hat of a CPO with the visor strap under his chin against the wind.  It was apparently Larzenarski on a round of inspection of the decks but he did not come to the bridge and I could not be sure.  The figure went out of sight in the darkness toward the stern.  I thought for a minute that I saw someone else move back there, but in the rain and spray it could well have been an illusion.

By the time I was relieved at 0200 hours I was wet and chilled to the bone.  I needed something hot to drink and knew that the cooks left an urn of coffee in the gangway outside the galley each night for watch standers.  With difficulty and clinging to the lifelines, I made my way aft.

I had tried coffee at home prepared just the way my father did with cream and sugar, but I never liked the taste of the stuff.  This night I was desperate and cold enough to try it again.  There was hot coffee in the urn; however, I found that the condensed milk can left out was empty and so was the sugar bowl.  Shrugging, I tried it black and, to my delight, found that it tasted delicious.  I sat at the mess table and enjoyed a warming cup before I braved the blow back to the forecastle.

The next morning the weather had cleared a bit, but the wind was still at gale force.  Green water was still breaking over the main deck and, periodically, over the fantail that was held down by the tow hawser to the heavy barge.  The deck division was told to stand by for muster in the mess compartment instead of on deck.

Chief Larzenarski did not show for muster.  It was held by Sullivan.  Afterward, scuttlebutt (rumor) was that Larzenarski was missing.  A search of the entire pitching and rolling ship was made and no trace of the abrasive CPO was found.  I found myself remembering the figure in a chief’s hat that I had seen on the catwalk during my watch and presumed that he had gone down to the fantail to check the tow cable and was swept overboard.

I was still wondering if I should report what I had seen when our stern and very disliked division officer Lt. Williams, appeared in the mess compartment.  We came to attention and, after he had told us to stand easy, he said, “Men, the tow cable is chafing and needs to be lengthened.  I need four volunteers to go to the fantail with me and do the job.”

There was a prolonged silence.  The men of the regular ship’s company simply looked down at their hands.  I noted that the officer was wearing dungarees and he had said “go down to the fantail with me”.  Even though the word always was, ”never volunteer for anything”, I suddenly blurted out, “I’ll go, sir.”

Langford then volunteered and, apparently not to be outdone by Airedales, two of the ship’s company rose.  I was surprised that one of them was Sullivan.  I kicked off my shoes and stripped of my socks because I felt that I would have better traction barefoot.  The lieutenant led us out onto the wave-washed fantail.

The fantail was clear except that every fifth or sixth wave was large enough to crash green water over the deck.  When the big waves came all we could do was hang on with both hands until the water subsided.  I found myself next to the officer was we struggled with the heavy wire cable.

The lieutenant loosened the stoppers on the tow cable and we inched out several yards.  He had just re-secured the stopper when the great-granddaddy of the waves buried us under solid green water.  I barely had time to get an arm securely around the tow cable.

When the water subsided I realized that the lieutenant was no longer beside me.  He had lost his hold on the cable and was haing half over the scuppers holding the bottom chain of the lifelines with one hand.  It was apparent that another wave could take him over the side.  I let go of the tow cable and liunged for the lifelines.  I caught the upper cable with my left hand and held out my right to the officer.  He seized it with his free hand and, as the ship rolled back to port, dragged himself back aboard.

Without a word the lieutenant checked that the able stopper was secure and led us back to the shelter of the mess compartment.  There he said, “Well done, men.”  Then turning to me he said, “Get some dry clothes, Frieze, and see me in the wardroom in fifteen minutes.”

When Lt. Williams had gone, Sullivan said to me in a low voice, “Goddamn Airedale, whyn’t you let that bastard go—we’d have been rid of him and Larzenarski both!”

Officers’ country was strange to me so I rather timorously made my way to the wardroom amidships after getting some dry dungarees and a clean white hat.  The wardroom was not plush but had a sliver coffee service, curtains at the portholes, and mess tables with green baize overings and chairs instead of benches.  The lieutenant, hair still wet and a towel about his neck, was sitting alone at one of the tables.

The officer said, “Help yourself to a cup of coffee, sailor.  You earned it.  And sit down a minute.”

It sounded more like an order than an offer.  I drew coffee into a china cup with a blue Navy emblem and sat on the edge of the chair opposite the lieutenant.  He eyed me for a minute.

“Just wanted to say thank you, Frieze.  There are probably men on this ship that would not have offered me a hand.  I am fully aware that many of the men think I am a mean s.o.b.”

I was embarrassed and could feel my ears and face getting red.  “Wasn’t anything, sir.  I reckon you could have made it by yourself.”

“Probably so, but you did offer me a hand without waiting to see.”

I recall being totally at a loss.  I believe I may have stammered, “Well—uh—I didn’t know how soon the next big wave might come along.  Ain’t as if I saved your life or something.”

“Right,” he said briskly, “and you’re not going to get a medal or anything, but I will see that there is a note of commendation in your service record.”

He looked down at a paper on the table that was the watch list from the previous night and changed the subject, “You had the twelve to two on the wing of the bridge last night.”

“Yessir.”

“You know that Chief Larzenarski is missing, apparently overboard during the storm.  Did you see anything on deck during your watch?”

A short montage flashed into my mind—the dim figure in a chief’s hat on the catwalk going aft, what could have been the shadow of another man back there, and the gleam in Sullivan’s eyes when he told us at muster that the hated CPO was missing.  I also recalled THE WAY Sullivan had cursed the CPO the first day we were aboard.  I knew, however, that I should not attest to anything of which I was not totally sure.

“Well, sir, yes.  Sometime around oh one hundred or thereabouts, I saw someone, who I thin was wearing a chief’s hat, going along the catwalk from the bridge aft toward the stern.  That’s all I saw.  It was dang dark out there.  I figured it was the chief checking the decks.”

“No one else?”

“Not that I could swear to—too dark and too many shadows.  Couldn’t see good through the rain and spray.”

The lieutenant dismissed me then and the ship’s log recorded that chief Boatswain’s Mate Larzenarski was apparently lost overboard while carrying out his duties on the ship.  For fifty years I have wondered about Coxswain Sullivan and his knife.  After Larzenarski’s disappearance, Sullivan’s first class rate was restored and, being the ranking petty officer in the deck division, he was made acting CPO for the balance of the voyage.

Scraping, painting, and holystoning seemed to go on interminably; however, his temporary promotion made Sullivan much more human and he did not make our lives as miserable as the Polish CPO had done.  Two or three days after the storm we sailed into calm waters and within the week were under blue skies and a tropical sun.

Before sunset on March 2^nd, we sighted the island of Molokai on the far horizon.  By muster at 0700 the next morning we were sailing past Diamond Head and Waikiki on Oahu.  A grey Navy tug met us when we had downtown Honolulu broad on the starboard beam and relieved us of the barge we had towed.  Just after noon chow Tippecanoe steamed through the anti-submarine net and up the entrance to Pearl Harbor.  We arrived in the Territory of Hawaii on my 19^th birthday, 3 March 1941.

[My father had sailed into his second paradise, Washington State being the first.]

Admiral's Inspection and Anchors Aweigh

When we mustered with the deck division the next morning, we found that it would be nearly two weeks before we sailed.  Before then the ship would be subjected to an admiral’s inspection.  To make the old ship ready, both Lt. Williams and Chief Larzenarski drove us unmercifully.  Paint parties went over the side to scrape the worst rust spots, coat them with red-lead, then apply a fresh coat of Navy grey.  The rest of us got very familiar with iron paint scrapers turned out by the ship’s machine shop and paint brushes.

The joking rule was, “If it moves—salute it.  If it doesn’t move—paint it!”  The rule did not apply to brass, which in peacetime was kept shined.  Unfortunately, there was a lot of brass—cofferdam ID plates, porthole rims, compartment identification plates, and many fittings.  The ship’s stores included dozens of cans of pink brass polish and we used up a lot of elbow grease and rags.

When the Friday of the admiral’s inspection came, I was amazed at the transformation of the rusty old ship.  All fuel oil hoses and hawsers had been neatly stowed.  The decks, bulkheads, and side plates were resplendent in fresh grey paint.  Every bit of brass gleamed in the sunlight.  Our quarters and all other below decks spaces had been scrubbed and painted.  The ancient brass washbasins in the head gleamed like gold.  When the inspection party was piped aboard, the entire crew had been mustered in immaculate white uniforms and shined dress shoes.  At that moment I was proud of the old Tippecanoe and did not regret the sweating hours of drudgery that had made her look like a part of Uncle Sam’s Navy.

Two days after the inspection, Tippecanoe’s engines rumbled into life and the P.A. system blared, “Now hear this—all hand, man your special sea details!”  I had been assigned to the first crow’s nest watch on the high foremast so I scrambled up the seventy feet of steel rungs welded to the foremast to the small, waist-high metal can that was the foremast lookout.

Below me the ship’s crew not assigned to sea details manned the rails in undress whites.  The mooring hawsers splashed into the water and with a “Whoop—whoop” of the ship’s horn and a blast from the siren, Tippecanoe backed away from the pier where a small contingent of wives and children waved and headed out to sea.

We did not sail directly to Hawaii.  On February 13^th we put in at Long Beach to take aboard a full load of fuel oil.  The next day we sailed for San Francisco.  Our normal cruising speed fully loaded was twelve knots so it was three days before we sailed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and anchored in San Francisco Bay off Treasure Island.  We got no liberty in San Francisco and had to be content with looking at the lights of the Barbary Coast and wondering why the ship had put in there.

We weighed anchor the next morning and headed back out beneath the Golden Gate.  Once more I had the first watch in the foremast crow’s nest.  I gaped upward as the Tippecanoe slipped beneath the main span of the soaring bridge.  High over my head two men were working on a scaffolding at the endless job of keeping the big bridge painted.  As the ship slid beneath them, the painters looked down and answered my wave from the crow’s nest.

I was neglecting my lookout duties.  The voice tube to the bridge suddenly whistled.  When I answered a mild voice said, “Keep alert, sailor—we have traffic ahead.”

Abashed, I jerked my eyes to the fore.  About a mile ahead of us as we cleared the narrows there was a tug towing a large barge.  Actually, the tug and barge were laid to waiting for us.  We came to a stop and the tug transferred the tow lines of the barge to Tippecanoe.  We were to tow it to Hawaii.

The drag of the barge plus our full load of oil reduced the sedate pace of the Tippecanoe to less than ten knots at turns of the single screw for standard speed.  In fact, on a calm day the captain decided to turn up full speed ahead for a test run.  Tippecanoe refused to get above twelve knots.  It was to be a long slow passage to Hawaii.  We continued to scrape and paint deck plates and, in bare feet and rolled-up dungarees, with holystones and sand we scoured the wood of the fantail and boat decks just as sailors had done for a century.

The USS Tippecannoe and Partrol Wing One

Chapter 21

USS Tippecanoe

[For Patrol Wing One the 1941 voyage from San Diego to Pearl Harbor was peculiar from start to finish.]

She lay at a pier so far out on Point Loma that it would be more than a thirty-minute bus ride into downtown San Diego.  Tippecanoe was an oil tanker but she was surely the dowdiest old frump in the Navy fleets of auxiliary and support ships.

The old girl was an oiler of World War I vintage.  She had a tall single stack that towered above a large after deck house and fantail, a deckhouse structure just forward of amidships topped by the bridge, and a raised foc’sul deck—all connected by an elevated walkway that spanned the main deck clutter of cofferdams, oil transfer houses, and faked-down manila hawsers.

The bow hook in the whaleboat had been right—she was a rusty old bucket.  Ocher streaks soiled the Navy grey of her side plates although there were sailors working with paint scrapers and paint buckets on scaffolds and boson’s chairs over her sides.  The upper works appeared to be fairly recently painted; however, the first impression was “she don’t much give a damn”.

The Tippecanoe was empty of cargo and riding high in the water.  The Coxswain did not take us to the pier but laid the whaleboat alongside the platform at the foot of the steep sea accommodation ladder.  It was difficult to negotiate the ladder carrying our heavy seabags with the hammocks lashed around them.  No one offered to lend a hand except that the how hook and motor mac heaved the seabags onto the platform as each man disembarked.  After the snide remarked about “Airedales” of the coxswain we were determined to make it on our own—and somehow we did.

Once we had achieved the main deck and had properly saluted the colors aft and the officer of the deck, a burly CPO identified himself as the boson, Larzenarski, and took our orders.  He left us sitting on the cofferdams in the hot sun for more than thirty minutes before a seaman appeared and let us to our quarters.

The ship’s crew was berthed aft below the after deck house which contained the mess deck and galley; however, the berths for temporary ship’s company aboard for transportation were in a compartment in the forecastle just aft of the anchor chain locker.  It was strictly primitive and bare bones.  There were three-high steel bunks welded to stanchions where hammocks had once been slung at night.  In a clear area at the foot of the entry ladder there was a single mess-type table with a bench on each side.  Beside it was a trash can.  This would be our home for the next four weeks.

Across the compartment from the entry ladder, an open door led to the head, such as it was.  It was a narrow compartment lined on one side with eight brass wash basins each having a small mirror.  Along the other bulkhead, the sanitary provisions consisted of a mental trough at sitting height through which sea water was circulated.  Cut out seat boards for eight had been installed over the trough as a gesture at comfort.

We selected our bunks and unlashed our gear.  Just as we were laying out our hammocks and horsehair mattresses on the steel bunk frames, Chief Larzenarski came down the steep entry ladder.  (Note:  In Navy terminology, stairways are “ladders”, floors are “decks”, ceiling are “overhead”, walls are “bulkheads”, and upstairs is known as “topside”.)

Larzenarski’s weathered round Polish face was set in a perpetual scowl.  He growled, “Listen up, you people.  You goddam Airedales (a derogatory cognomen applied by men of the surface fleet to anyone in Naval Aviation) ain’t in for no pleasure cruise to Hay-wa-yee!  You are temporary ship’s company of Tipsoo assigned to the deck division of which I happen to be the chief.

“Your division office is Lieutenant Williams who is one mean s.o.b. that goes strictly by the book.  Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill is posted on the bulletin board aft by the mess compartment.  Check it out.

“Uniform of the day is dungarees unless otherwise posted so get out of them whites before evening chow.  As long as you are aboard, you are in the working Navy!”

Langford and I looked at each other and shrugged as the CPO disappeared up the ladder without further comment.  As we were changing to our dungarees, the P.A. system came alive with the whistle of a boson’s pipe and a voice boomed in a bored chant, “Now hear this!  Sweepers starcher brooms—clean sweep-down fore and aft!”

It was sixteen hundred hours, the end of the work day.  We finished setting our gear and stowed our seabags in a rack along the bulkhead (no lockers were provided in our austere compartment) then, not knowing what we were expected to do, went topside to check out the ship.

The late afternoon was beautiful, the wide bay calm beneath a blue sky studded with white cumulus clouds.  Gulls circled overhead and flights of pelicans winged ponderously past.  We made our way aft along the raised catwalk above the cluttered main deck, noting as passed around the bridge structure that a brass plate above a watertight entry door read “Officers Country”.

At the stern we found the mess compartment and the bulletin board the CPO had mentioned.  Beyond that was a wide wood fantail deck scored clean by holystoning and above which a white canvas sunshade was stretched.  Some of the ship’s crew were lounging there.

I saw the dour coxswain of the motor whaleboat sitting against a bulkhead stropping his wicked looking belt knife on the leather of his shoe.  The name stenciled on his blue dungaree shirt was “Sullivan” and there was the badge of a second class petty officer in stencil on his left sleeve.  I dropped down beside him.

“Hi, Sullivan—some ship.”

He eyed me sharply but some of the antagonism went out of his sour face.  “Yea—some ship!  This here old bucket just been reactivated from the reserve fleet—Standard Oil had her.   She’s a pile of junk and you’ll find out most of the crew are either the dregs of the Navy or are reserves.  Only thing worse than an Airedale is a reserve!”

“Chief Larzenarski doesn’t seem very friendly,” I said.

Sullivan snorted bitterly, “Friendly?!  Bastard is the meanest sonabitch on the ship.  Wasn’t for him, I could make chief and be the boson’s mate myself.  I was first class and he got me busted!  Ten year I got in his canoe club and he gets me busted for bringing a little booze aboard.  I’d like tosee the sonabitch go over the side some dark night!”

Sullivan tested the keen edge of the knife by shaving some hairs from his forearm while I said, “Larzenarski says Lt. Williams is a mean s.o.b.—how about that?”

The coxswain sheathed the knife.  “He is and he ain’t. Regular Navy ring pounder out of Annapolis, but he must have fouled up somewhere or he wouldn’t be on this old scow.  Yeoman says he been passed over once for promotion to lieutenant commander.  Hard man and Navy regs is his bible, but he don’t seem to have many friends.  He’s the ship’s first lieutenant and division officer of the deck gang.  He’ll ride the hell out of you just like Larzenarski and you won’t like him, but you gotta respect him.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the ubiquitous P.A. system.  The boson’s pipe shrilled and the bored voice said, “Now hear this—chow down.”  Sullivan stretched, and walked off toward the mess compartment.

The food was surprisingly good on Tippecanoe and was plentiful.  After supper, not wanting to go back to our dismal quarters right away, we once more lounged on the fantail.  It was a languorous evening—the sunset was fading beyond the point and a nearly full moon was in the east.  In anticipation of our destination, Hawaiian music was coming over the P.A. system.

I lay back on the scoured wood with my hands behind my head and looked up at the canvas gleaming white in the soft moonlight while I listened to the strains of “Lovely Hula Hands”.  That music was known as “shipping over music”.  It was totally peaceful and I was content.  A whole new life of adventure awaited me out there somewhere.  The rusty barbed wire fences and dusty little country roads of the hot Ozark hills seemed a million miles away—a distant past.